Most theatergoers recoiled when they heard that someone had written a musical about a woman with bipolar disorder, but Next to Normal won the Pulitzer Prize and ran almost two years on Broadway, spawning regional productions all over the country.
Now the idea of such a show seems, well, almost normal. Still, are audiences ready for a musical about a woman facing the brick wall of Alzheimer’s? I believe strongly that anything can be musicalized if it is done well, but I approached The Memory Show, a new off-Broadway musical about a young woman who puts her life on hold to move in with and care for her mother, drifting into the void of dementia, warily.
But I was also definitely intrigued, all the more so when I heard that the cast consisted of Catherine Cox (as Mother) and Leslie Kritzer (as Daughter). Besides, on my final day in New York, it fit my schedule perfectly. It had a Sunday matinee and the show runs only 80 minutes, which would give me just enough time to get to the airport and get home (more than enough if the skeleton crew of air traffic controllers were still causing most flights to be delayed).
I had never heard of composer Zach Redler or lyricist-book writer Sara Cooper, but these are two careers I now want to follow. (A sign of the times: The program lists no bios, but instead refers the reader to a website for the information.) The Memory Show is as painful and heartbreaking as you might imagine ― yes, leavened with some humor ― and it will never be confused for light entertainment aimed at the proverbial tired businessman or businesswoman. Still, it is an honest effort to stretch the bounds of the musical theater and terribly affecting.
Like Next to Normal, I worry for the commercial prospects of The Memory Show, but I was wrong about the former and would love to be wrong about the latter too. More on the show after it opens Tuesday evening.